Havana Interview Reportback

[Ide & Sam 1]

I posted a report last week on our fiance visa interview in Havana, but I can't edit it and wanted to add some info that I forgot to mention.

1) I brought roughly 75-100 emails printed out from when we met (2008) to the present. They only took the ones from 2011 (about 30 emails) and acted like even that was too much. So I would recommend only bringing the really pertinent emails and letters rather that wasting all the paper on printing everything. Although they did read the emails I submitted because they referenced them during the interview, so choose your emails wisely....see below

2) On that...one dirty email somehow slipped into our stack (woops!)...the interviewer mentioned it and made a joke about it...but we were both really embarrassed ! Double check what you hand in and black out anything you don't want them to see.

3) Same goes for all the other evidence. I also brought all my phone and chat logs and it didn't look like they even read them. I will never know and maybe the stacks of evidence spoke for themselves. But the amount of time I spent worrying about this stuff is crazy

4) Envelopes...I know people mentioned this on the forum but this somehow slipped my mind. They do not allow you to bring in envelopes so leave them at home. We had some of our stuff in a binder...they also made us take that apart. A bag with your documents held together by clips is the best way to go in terms of organization.

5) The questions were really basic and the whole interview went very fast for us. They interviewed my fiance first. The person doing the interview didn't speak spanish very well so my fiance offered to do it in English. They did his whole interview in English...which I imagine looked really good for him. They asked him my name, where I lived, how often I came to Cuba, when we met, how we first met, when did the relationship get serious, what I do for a living, what does he plan to do in the US, what are his plans with his daughter, what is my relationship like with his daughter and his family. That was basically it. Then they called me over and told us that we can be interview together. They asked me how many times have I been to Cuba, when he we decide to get married, how did I get to Cuba. Then she told us about the "dirty email" we both laughed. She gave us all the evidence back and told us that we were approved. She gave us a slip of white paper and told him to come back in a week.

6) They messed up my fiance's fingerprints so he had to go back the next day and get those fixed which is when he ran into the same lady who interviewed us. She told him that she really liked looking at our photos (we included allot of funny pictures of us hanging out and goofing around with the camera). She asked if he wanted the visa right away ? Of course he said yes...so he waited about an hour and she came out with his visa and a big sealed packet and told him not to open the packet until he arrives in the US.

Thats about it. If you have any other questions please let me know.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Ide & Sam

[ann and aties 9]

This is going to be very helpful for people in the future interviewing in Havana. I too obsessed over the letters, emails, phone logs. I just gave them logs, not actually emails, but they spanned since 2007 so I skipped some months - still they said "so much paperwork".

Our interview experience was very different, who knows why - maybe our age difference or just the fact that it was a different interviewer. Our interviewer spoke very good Spanish.